zeebox today announces the roll-out of a new feature that instantly transaction-enables television advertising. In a world first, UK users will be able to purchase products advertised on TV through their tablet or smartphone in real time.

By shortening the path from TV ad impression to purchase, zeebox’s clickable ads increase the value of TV advertising and provide brands with measureable performance tracking of their TV ad spend.

Starting today, users of zeebox will be able to buy products they see advertised on TV with just a few clicks. It works like this: within seconds of a TV ad appearing on screen, a corresponding click-to-buy button appears – as if by magic – in zeebox’s real-time tag stream. Each tag is marked with an icon that denotes whether the advertised product is a song, product, travel service, etc. Clicking on the tag takes the user directly to the product page of a trusted web merchant such as Amazon or Tesco, or to the brand’s website for more information.

Since launching in October 2011, zeebox has led innovation in the market of social TV apps, uniquely enabling consumers to discover TV content through their extended social graph, to follow their favourite celebrities’ TV viewing, and to automatically get more information about the programmes they’re watching. zeebox knows what consumers are watching, and engages them with relevant content and ecommerce opportunities in synch with live TV.

“Our consumer research told us that people want an easy way to buy things they see on TV. We’re delighted to launch this capability, seamlessly integrated into our user interface, making zeebox an even better companion TV experience,” said Ernesto Schmitt, CEO of zeebox.

He added: “This is the first truly scalable approach to transaction-enabling TV advertising across all ad categories. Consumers get the convenience of being able to react instantly to a TV advert, while brands benefit from shortening the distance between ad impression and product purchase.”

Clickable TV ads are just the beginning. Zeebox is offering brand owners the opportunity to create targetable, trackable second-screen ads in synch with their TV commercials – thus enabling them to extend the reach of TV advertising and providing true measurability and accountability of its effectiveness.

“Making TV ads clickable and interactive has been the holy grail for TV advertisers. Previous attempts to deliver this via red button and similar services have suffered from lack of web integration, an easy way to do comparison shopping on your TV screen, and ability to buy from popular stores on your TV. By moving this functionality to your smartphone or tablet, and delivering an experience that is synchronised to the show you’re watching on TV, we think that zeebox finally delivers on that magical click-to-buy promise.” said Anthony Rose, zeebox CTO.

Zeebox is available in the UK free to users at zeebox.com, and as an app for iPad and iPhone here.